Hello! Today I want to share with you my impressions of the Universe. Just imagine, there is no end, it has always been interesting, but can this be? From this article you can learn about stars, their types and life, the big bang, black holes, pulsars and some other important things.
is everything that exists: space, matter, time, energy. It includes all the planet, stars, and other cosmic bodies.
- this is the entire existing material world, it is unlimited in space and time and diverse in the forms that matter takes in the process of its development.
Universe studied by astronomy- this is a part of the material world, which is available for research by astronomical methods that correspond to the achieved level of science (this part of the Universe is sometimes called the Metagalaxy).
Metagalaxy is a part of the Universe accessible to modern methods of research. The metagalaxy contains several billion .
The universe is so huge that it is impossible to comprehend its size. Let's talk about the Universe: the part of it that we can see extends over 1.6 million million million million km, and no one knows how big it is beyond the visible.
How the universe got its present form and from what it arose, many theories try to explain. According to the most popular theory, 13 billion years ago, it was born as a result of a giant explosion. Time, space, energy, matter - all this arose as a result of this phenomenal explosion. What happened before the so-called "big bang" is meaningless to say, there was nothing before it.
- according to modern concepts, this is the state of the Universe in the past (about 13 billion years ago), when its average density was many times higher than the modern one. Over time, the density of the universe decreases due to its expansion.
Accordingly, as we go deeper into the past, the density increases, right up to the moment when the classical ideas about time and space lose their force. This moment can be taken as the beginning of the countdown. The time interval from 0 to several seconds is conditionally called the Big Bang period.
The substance of the Universe, at the beginning of this period, received colossal relative speeds (“exploded” and hence the name).
Observed in our time, the evidence of the Big Bang is the value of the concentration of helium, hydrogen and some other light elements, cosmic microwave background radiation, the distribution of inhomogeneities in the Universe (for example, galaxies).
Astronomers believe that the universe was incredibly hot and full of radiation after the big bang.
Atomic particles - protons, electrons and neutrons formed in about 10 seconds.
The atoms themselves - atoms of helium and hydrogen - were formed only a few hundred thousand years later, when the Universe cooled and expanded significantly in size.
Echoes of the Big Bang.
If the big bang happened 13 billion years ago, by now the universe would have cooled to about 3 degrees Kelvin, or 3 degrees above absolute zero.
Scientists have registered background radio noise using telescopes. These radio noises, throughout the starry sky, correspond to this temperature and are considered to be the echoes of the big bang that still reach us.
According to one of the most popular scientific legends, Isaac Newton saw an apple fall to the ground, and realized that this happened under the influence of gravity emanating from the Earth itself. The magnitude of this force depends on the mass of the body.
The force of gravity of an apple, which has a small mass, does not affect the movement of our planet, the Earth has a large mass and it attracts the apple to itself.
In space orbits, the forces of attraction hold all celestial bodies. The Moon moves along the orbit of the Earth and does not move away from it, in circumsolar orbits the force of attraction of the Sun holds the planets, and the Sun holds in position in relation to other stars, a force that is much greater than gravitational.
Our Sun is a star, and quite ordinary and of medium size. The sun, like all other stars, is a ball of luminous gas, and is like a colossal furnace that releases heat, light, and other forms of energy. The solar system is made up of planets orbiting the sun and, of course, the sun itself.
Other stars, because they are very far from us, seem tiny in the sky, but in fact, some of them are hundreds of times larger than our Sun in diameter.
Stars and galaxies.
Astronomers determine the location of stars by placing them in constellations or in relation to them. Constellation - this is a group of stars visible in a certain part of the night sky, but not always, in reality, located nearby.
In stellar archipelagos, called galaxies, stars are grouped in the vast expanses of space. Our Galaxy, which is called the Milky Way, includes the Sun with all its planets. Our galaxy is far from being the largest, but it is big enough to imagine it.
In relation to the speed of light in the universe, distances are measured; humanity knows nothing faster than it. The speed of light is 300 thousand km/sec. As a light year, astronomers use such a unit - this is the distance that a ray of light would travel in a year, that is, 9.46 million million km.
Proxima in the constellation Centaur is the closest star to us. It is located at a distance of 4.3 light years. We don't see her the way we look at her as she was more than four years ago. And the light of the Sun reaches us in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.
The form of a giant rotating wheel with a protruding axle - a hub, has the Milky Way with hundreds of thousands of millions of its stars. The Sun is located 250 thousand light years from its axis - closer to the rim of this wheel. Around the center of the Galaxy, the Sun turns around in its orbit in 250 million years.
Our Galaxy is one of many, and no one knows how many there are. Over a billion galaxies have already been discovered, and many millions of stars in each of them. Hundreds of millions of light-years from earthlings are the most distant of the already known galaxies.
We peer into the most distant past of the Universe by studying them. All galaxies are moving away from us and from each other. It seems that the universe is still expanding, and the big bang was its beginning.
What are the stars?
Stars are light gas (plasma) balls similar to the Sun. They are formed from a dusty-gas environment (mostly from helium and hydrogen), due to gravitational instability.
Stars are different, but once they all arose and after millions of years they will disappear. Our Sun is almost 5 billion years old and, according to astronomers, it will last the same amount of time, and then it will begin to die.
The sun - this is a single star, many other stars are binary, that is, in fact, they consist of two stars that revolve around each other. Astronomers also know triple and so-called multiple stars, which consist of many stellar bodies.
Supergiants are the largest stars.
Antares, 350 times the diameter of the Sun, is one of these stars. However, all supergiants have a very low density. Giants are smaller stars with a diameter of 10 to 100 times that of the Sun.
Their density is also low, but it is greater than that of supergiants. Most visible stars, including the Sun, are classified as main sequence stars, or middle stars. Their diameter can be either ten times smaller or ten times larger than the diameter of the Sun.
They are called red dwarfs smallest main sequence stars and white dwarfs - called even smaller bodies that no longer belong to the stars of the main sequence.
White dwarfs (the size of our own) are extremely dense, but very dim. Their density is many million times greater than the density of water. Up to 5 billion white dwarfs can exist in the Milky Way alone, although scientists have discovered only a few hundred of them so far.
For example, let's watch a video comparing the sizes of stars.
Star life.
Every star, as mentioned earlier, is born from a cloud of dust and hydrogen. The universe is full of such clouds.
The formation of a star begins when, under the influence of some other (incomprehensible) force and under the influence of gravity, as astronomers say, a collapse or “collapse” of a celestial body occurs: the cloud begins to rotate, and its center heats up. You can see the evolution of stars.
Nuclear reactions begin when the temperature inside a star cloud reaches a million degrees.
During these reactions, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms combine and form helium. The energy produced by the reactions is released in the form of light and heat, and a new star lights up.
Stellar dust and residual gases are observed around new stars. The planets formed around our Sun from this matter. Surely, similar planets formed around other stars, and some forms of life are likely on many planets, the discovery of which mankind does not know.
Star Explosions.
The fate of a star largely depends on its mass. When a star like our Sun uses its hydrogen “fuel,” the helium shell contracts and the outer layers expand.
The star becomes a red giant at this stage of its existence. After, over time, its outer layers sharply depart, and leave behind only a small bright core of a star - white dwarf. black dwarf(huge carbon mass) the star becomes, gradually cooling.
A more dramatic fate awaits stars with a mass several times the mass of the Earth.
They turn into supergiants, much larger than red giants, this happens as their nuclear fuel is depleted, which is why they are, and expand, becoming so huge.
Then, under the influence of gravity, there is a sharp collapse of their nuclei. The released energy blows the star to pieces with an unimaginable explosion.
Astronomers call such an explosion a supernova. A supernova shines millions of times brighter than the Sun for some time. For the first time in 383 years, in February 1987, a supernova from a nearby galaxy was visible to the naked eye from Earth.
Depending on the initial mass of the star, a supernova may leave behind a small body called a neutron star. With a diameter of no more than a few tens of kilometers, such a star consists of solid neutrons, which is why its density is many times higher than the enormous density of white dwarfs.
Black holes.
The force of core collapse in some supernovae is so great that the compression of matter practically does not lead to its disappearance. A piece of outer space with incredibly high gravity remains instead of matter. Such an area is called a black hole, its force is so powerful that it draws everything into itself.
Black holes cannot be seen due to their nature. However, astronomers believe they have located them.
Astronomers are looking for systems of binary stars with powerful radiation and believe that it arises due to the release of matter into a black hole, accompanied by heating temperatures of millions of degrees.
In the constellation Cygnus (the so-called black hole Cygnus X-1), such a source of radiation was discovered. Some scientists believe that in addition to black holes, there are also white ones. These white holes arise in the place where the collected matter is preparing to form new stellar bodies.
The Universe is also fraught with mysterious formations called quasars. Probably, these are the nuclei of distant galaxies that glow brightly, and beyond them, we do not see anything in the Universe.
Shortly after the formation of the Universe, their light began to move in our direction. Scientists believe that the energy equal to that of quasars can only come from cosmic holes.
Pulsars are no less mysterious. Pulsars are regularly emitting beams of formation energy. They, according to scientists, are stars that rotate rapidly, and light rays emanate from them, like from cosmic beacons.
Future of the Universe.
What is the fate of our universe no one knows. It looks like it's still expanding after the initial explosion. Two scenarios are possible in the very distant future.
According to the first one, theory of open space, the Universe will expand until all the energy is spent on all the stars and galaxies cease to exist.
Second - the theory of closed space, according to which, the expansion of the Universe will someday stop, it will again begin to shrink and will shrink until it disappears in the process.
Scientists called this process by analogy with the big bang - big compression. The result could be another big bang, creating a new universe.
So, everything had a beginning and there will be an end, only what, no one knows this ...
Usually, when they talk about the size of the universe, they mean local fragment of the Universe (Universe), which is available to our observation.
This is the so-called observable universe - a region of space visible to us from the Earth.
And since the age of the universe is about 13,800,000,000 years, no matter which direction we look, we see light that reached us in 13.8 billion years.
So, based on this, it is logical to think that the observable universe should be 13.8 x 2 = 27,600,000,000 light-years across.
But it's not! Because space expands over time. And those distant objects that emitted light 13.8 billion years ago flew even further during this time. Today they are already more than 46.5 billion light-years away. Doubling that, we get 93 billion light years.
Thus, the real diameter of the observable universe is 93 billion sv. years.
A visual (spherical) representation of the three-dimensional structure of the observable universe as seen from our position (the center of the circle).
white lines the boundaries of the observable universe are marked.
Spots of light- these are clusters of clusters of galaxies - superclusters (supercluster) - the largest known structures in space.
Scale bar: one division from above - 1 billion light years, from below - 1 billion parsecs.
Our house (center) here designated as the Virgo Supercluster, it is a system that includes tens of thousands of galaxies, including our own, the Milky Way.
A more visual representation of the scale of the observable universe gives the following image:
Location of the Earth in the Observable Universe - a series of eight maps
from left to right top row: Earth - Solar system - Nearest stars - Milky Way Galaxy, bottom row: Local group of galaxies - Virgo Cluster - Local Supercluster - Observable (observable) Universe.
In order to better feel and realize what a colossal, incomparable with our earthly ideas, scales we are talking about, it is worth seeing enlarged image of this circuit in media viewer .
What can be said about the entire universe? The size of the entire Universe (the Universe, the Metaverse) must be much larger!
But, that's what this whole Universe is like and how it works, it still remains a mystery to us ...
What about the center of the universe? The observable universe has a center - it's us! We are at the center of the observable universe because the observable universe is just a patch of space as seen from Earth.
And just as from a high tower we see a circular area centered on the tower itself, we also see a region of space centered away from the observer. In fact, to be more precise, each of us is the center of our own observable universe.
But this does not mean that we are in the center of the entire Universe, just as the tower is by no means the center of the world, but only the center of that piece of the world that is visible from it - to the horizon.
The same is true of the observable universe.
When we look up into the sky, we see light that has been flying towards us for 13.8 billion years from places that are already 46.5 billion light-years away.
We do not see what is beyond this horizon.
The portal site is an information resource where you can get a lot of useful and interesting knowledge related to the Cosmos. First of all, we will talk about our and other Universes, about celestial bodies, black holes and phenomena in the depths of outer space.
The totality of everything that exists, matter, individual particles and the space between these particles is called the Universe. According to scientists and astrologers, the age of the universe is approximately 14 billion years. The size of the visible part of the universe is about 14 billion light years. And some argue that the universe extends over 90 billion light-years. For greater convenience, in calculating such distances, it is customary to use the parsec value. One parsec is equal to 3.2616 light years, that is, a parsec is the distance over which the average radius of the Earth's orbit is viewed at an angle of one arc second.
Armed with these indicators, you can calculate the cosmic distance from one object to another. For example, the distance from our planet to the Moon is 300,000 km, or 1 light second. Consequently, this distance to the Sun increases to 8.31 light minutes.
Throughout its history, people have tried to solve the mysteries associated with the Cosmos and the Universe. In the articles of the portal site you can learn not only about the Universe, but also about modern scientific approaches to its study. All material is based on the most advanced theories and facts.
It should be noted that the Universe includes a large number of various objects known to people. The most widely known among them are planets, stars, satellites, black holes, asteroids and comets. The planets are the most understood at the moment, since we live on one of them. Some planets have their own moons. So, the Earth has its own satellite - the Moon. In addition to our planet, there are 8 more that revolve around the sun.
There are many stars in the Cosmos, but each of them is not similar to each other. They have different temperatures, sizes and brightness. Since all stars are different, they are classified as follows:
white dwarfs;
Giants;
Supergiants;
neutron stars;
Quasars;
Pulsars.
The densest substance known to us is lead. In some planets, the density of their own substance can be thousands of times greater than the density of lead, which poses many questions for scientists.
All the planets revolve around the sun, but it also does not stand still. Stars can gather into clusters, which, in turn, also revolve around a center that is not yet known to us. These clusters are called galaxies. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way. All studies conducted so far say that most of the matter that galaxies create is still invisible to humans. Because of this, it was called dark matter.
The centers of galaxies are considered the most interesting. Some astronomers believe that a black hole is the possible center of the galaxy. This is a unique phenomenon formed as a result of the evolution of a star. But for now, these are just theories. It is not yet possible to conduct experiments or study such phenomena.
In addition to galaxies, the Universe contains nebulae (interstellar clouds consisting of gas, dust and plasma), relic radiation that permeates the entire space of the Universe, and many other little-known and even generally unknown objects.
The circulation of the ether of the universe
Symmetry and balance of material phenomena is the main principle of structural organization and interaction in nature. Moreover, in all forms: stellar plasma and matter, world and released ethers. The whole essence of such phenomena consists in their interactions and transformations, most of which are represented by the invisible ether. It is also called relic radiation. This is a microwave cosmic background radiation with a temperature of 2.7 K. There is an opinion that it is this oscillating ether that is the fundamental basis for everything that fills the Universe. The anisotropy of the distribution of the ether is connected with the directions and intensity of its movement in different areas of the invisible and visible space. The whole difficulty of studying and researching is quite comparable with the difficulties of studying turbulent processes in gases, plasmas and liquids of matter.
Why do many scientists believe that the universe is multidimensional?
After conducting experiments in laboratories and in the Cosmos itself, data were obtained from which it can be assumed that we live in a Universe in which the location of any object can be characterized by time and three spatial coordinates. Because of this, the assumption arises that the universe is four-dimensional. However, some scientists, developing theories of elementary particles and quantum gravity, may come to the conclusion that the existence of a large number of dimensions is simply necessary. Some models of the Universe do not exclude such a number as 11 dimensions.
It should be taken into account that the existence of a multidimensional Universe is possible with high-energy phenomena - black holes, big bang, bursters. At least, this is one of the ideas of leading cosmologists.
The model of the expanding Universe is based on the general theory of relativity. It was proposed to adequately explain the redshift structure. The expansion began at the same time as the Big Bang. Its state is illustrated by the surface of an inflated rubber ball, on which dots were applied - extragalactic objects. When such a balloon is inflated, all its points move away from each other, regardless of position. According to the theory, the Universe can either expand indefinitely or contract.
Baryon asymmetry of the Universe
The significant increase in the number of elementary particles observed in the Universe over the entire number of antiparticles is called baryon asymmetry. Baryons include neutrons, protons, and some other short-lived elementary particles. This disproportion happened in the era of annihilation, namely, three seconds after the Big Bang. Up to this point, the number of baryons and antibaryons corresponded to each other. During the mass annihilation of elementary antiparticles and particles, most of them paired up and disappeared, thereby giving rise to electromagnetic radiation.
Age of the Universe on the portal site
Modern scientists believe that our universe is about 16 billion years old. According to estimates, the minimum age can be 12-15 billion years. The minimum is repelled by the oldest stars in our galaxy. Its real age can be determined only with the help of Hubble's law, but real does not mean exact.
visibility horizon
A sphere with a radius equal to the distance that light travels during the entire existence of the Universe is called its visibility horizon. The existence of the horizon is directly proportional to the expansion and contraction of the Universe. According to Friedman's cosmological model, the Universe began to expand from a singular distance about 15-20 billion years ago. For all the time, light travels a residual distance in the expanding universe, namely 109 light years. Because of this, each observer of the moment t0 after the start of the expansion process can view only a small part, bounded by a sphere, which at that moment has radius I. Those bodies and objects that are at that moment outside this boundary are, in principle, not observable. The light reflected from them simply does not have time to reach the observer. This is not possible even if the light came out at the moment the expansion process began.
Due to absorption and scattering in the early Universe, given the high density, photons could not propagate in a free direction. Therefore, the observer is able to fix only the radiation that appeared in the era of the Universe transparent to radiation. This epoch is determined by the time t»300,000 years, the density of matter r»10-20 g/cm3, and the moment of hydrogen recombination. It follows from the foregoing that the closer the source is in the galaxy, the greater the redshift will be for it.
Big Bang
The moment the universe began is called the Big Bang. This concept is based on the fact that initially there was a point (singularity point), in which all energy and all matter were present. The basis of the characteristic is considered to be a high density of matter. What happened before this singularity is unknown.
Regarding the events and conditions that took place before the moment 5 * 10-44 seconds (the moment of the end of the 1st time quantum), there is no exact information. In physical terms of that era, one can only assume that then the temperature was approximately 1.3 * 1032 degrees with a matter density of approximately 1096 kg / m 3. These values are limiting for the application of existing ideas. They appear due to the ratio of the gravitational constant, the speed of light, the Boltzmann and Planck constants and are referred to as "Planck".
Those events that are associated with 5 * 10-44 to 10-36 seconds reflect the "inflationary Universe" model. The moment of 10-36 seconds is attributed to the "hot universe" model.
In the period from 1-3 to 100-120 seconds, helium nuclei and a small number of nuclei of other light chemical elements were formed. From that moment, the ratio began to be established in the gas - hydrogen 78%, helium 22%. Before one million years, the temperature in the Universe began to drop to 3000-45000 K, the era of recombination began. Before, free electrons began to combine with light protons and atomic nuclei. Helium atoms, hydrogen atoms, and a small number of lithium atoms began to appear. The substance became transparent, and the radiation, which is still observed, detached from it.
The next billion years of the existence of the Universe was marked by a decrease in temperature from 3000-45000 K to 300 K. Scientists called this period for the Universe the "Dark Age" due to the fact that no sources of electromagnetic radiation have yet appeared. During the same period, the inhomogeneities of the original gas mixtures were compacted due to the action of gravitational forces. Having simulated these processes on a computer, astronomers saw that this irreversibly led to the appearance of giant stars, exceeding the mass of the Sun by millions of times. Due to such a large mass, these stars were heated to unimaginably high temperatures and evolved over a period of tens of millions of years, after which they exploded as supernovae. Heating up to high temperatures, the surfaces of such stars created strong fluxes of ultraviolet radiation. Thus, a period of reionization began. The plasma that was formed as a result of such phenomena began to strongly scatter electromagnetic radiation in its spectral short-wavelength ranges. In a sense, the universe began to sink into a dense fog.
These huge stars became the first sources in the universe of chemical elements that are much heavier than lithium. Space objects of the 2nd generation began to form, which contained the nuclei of these atoms. These stars began to form from mixtures of heavy atoms. A repeated type of recombination of most of the atoms of intergalactic and interstellar gases took place, which, in turn, led to a new transparency of space for electromagnetic radiation. The universe has become exactly what we can observe now.
The observed structure of the universe on the portal website
The observed part is spatially inhomogeneous. Most clusters of galaxies and individual galaxies form its cellular or honeycomb structure. They construct cell walls that are a couple of megaparsecs thick. These cells are called "voids". They are characterized by a large size, tens of megaparsecs, and at the same time they do not contain any substance with electromagnetic radiation. About 50% of the total volume of the Universe falls to the share of "voids".
